It’s the time of year where baby goats become full tilt adolescent goat kids. They want all the humans remember they are descendants of the mountain folk. “Mountains, Gandalf, I want to see Mountains!” is the spirit. These hoofs are perfectly suitable for climbing on everything. These heads are great for pushing through fencing.
We set about weaning them at ninety days. That means the fencing between the nannies and the kids must be near water tight. This year that required repair and replacement. Old fencing doesn’t handle goat curiosity well and you notice it when they escape. The kids claim they want to help with the fence. I think they just want to play on it.
It’s been a curious spring for the flock guardian Sullivan. He had a wound show up on the top of his head, not clear what it’s from. No other marks of an altercation on his body. But he can’t keep the top of his head clean with his tongue and he was absolutely not going to let the other guardian Ashok touch it.
We brought him inside to manage the healing more directly. His preferred path of care was to scratch the scabs off and whimper about it. When we tried to apply some medication, it didn’t go well, very aggressive response. So, for the first time in my life, I bought a muzzle and put it on my dog. That made a pair of unpleasant treatment sessions. After the second go round, he realized we were helping and could proceed without the muzzle.
It was a problem with our equipment planning that we did not have a muzzle to work with. Nor did we have a cone to put on him. Now we have both and lesson learned.
This spring is different from last spring. A triple amount of rainfall means far more plant growth means more insects. There is a caterpillar here that is extremely painful to the touch. They are showing back up after an absence last year. I took a picture of his one, curiously enough, burrowing a hole in some Great Stuff foam in my shop wall.
Also, if you ever jam a two foot stick into a hose about 2 feet deep, you can get it out by drilling a pilot hole and running a screw into it. Lock the hose end into a vise and pull out with pliers.
